Sunday, March 14, 2010
Pros and Cons of Running a Letterpress in a Barn
First of all, there are mostly pros.
Second: this is our motor. It's older than anyone at the barn has ever seen. And that's pretty old, because farmers are expert mechanics. Especially these guys.
So a couple of weeks ago, Carrie and I walk in to find our extension cord missing. This is not unusual because, as my co-worker says, extension cords are like socks for a farmer.
What was out of the ordinary is the length the robber went to to get to our brand-new extension cord. See, our motor, being ancient, had a plug that was hanging on by a thread. Eventually, Carrie and I had to duct tape it, vice grip it, and then duck tape again to the the connection to stay in place. The actual prong was in the extension cord and not attached to the cord from the motor.
Needless to say, we were none too happy. There are about 7-8 guys who work out of the barn, and I have one prime suspect. The rest of them have been questioned and have been relatively believable when declaring their innocence.
But for the most part, they're super helpful. Especially Carrie's dad and Chris, the fix-it guy. Last weekend, Carrie's dad helped us find all the (37+) oil points and get it all greased up. "Girls, this is how you take care of a machine like this. You don't want metal touching metal because it will wear it out. It takes 2 hours to oil up a combine every morning, but you gotta do it."
Here's a link to the Chandler & Price Oil chart.
Well, turns out we greased it so well that even on it's slowest speed, it was cranking too fast for us to print!! And here we thought we had really gotten good at printing pretty fast. So then the guys took the motor partially apart, and now the whole thing runs backwards! Apparently, that's okay, but it seems pretty weird to me.
I guess if/when it does go out, we'll be in good hands to get it fixed. Let's just hope it doesn't happen during planting or harvest.
Labels: chandler price 10x15, letterpress
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i wish you could have seen the heidelberg I gave to jerry- oiled every sunday w/ a jerry-rigged motor that looked like it would set the house on fire. no way it was staying with me.
like socks for a farmer? i'll have to ask my st. louis boy to translate.